Rob McLarty

Spring Breeeeeeeeeak

I just saw Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers, and I liked it. I can see how many people would think it was overly gratuitous or voyeuristic, but I think it needed to be. It showed how our dreams are tangled with our lives by our desires.

Like Korine's other movies, the meaning of Spring Breakers wasn't explicitly spelled out; which allowed viewers to input heir own interpretations into the film. I think that's what makes a good movie (and good art). Rather than sitting in my seat like a zombie watching a predictable plot unfold, I felt mesmerized in the neon hallucinogenic dreamscape of the spring break these four girls were experiencing, trying to understand why the events were happening the way they were. I'm still processing what I just saw, but I saw some interesting patterns.

I think any art that's worth experiencing necessarily pushes us to the boundaries of what we're comfortable with; to force us to reflect on our own place in space and time and find connections between our experiences that we didn't see before. It should help us step out of our solitary boxes and look back at what's inside ourselves through different eyes. Spring Breakers is like this.

My take was that the "spring break forever" motto was for those seeking to cling to their effervescent fantasies, oblivious of the world around them, living in a perpetual dream. But in life and reality everything necessarily comes to an end (e.g., we will all eventually die). When Faith felt intense fear from Alien's world of metal teeth and drugs and wrongness, she fell out of the dream, just as Cotty did when she was shot. Brit and Candy continued, not dissuaded to give up their continued existence in the dreamscape of Alien's other world and pushed themselves to the limits of what they could find possible. But even for them, the spring break would eventually end and they would need to find a new dream to chase.

I think it's like we can choose our actions and decide when to change or we can let Fate choose for us. There's good and bad experiences either way. I don't think we can necessarily know which way is better or worse. Life in a dream, in a virtual reality, or in an hallucination, is just as visceral as life without. Our reality is defined by our consciousness. Wittgenstein said "The limits of my language are the limits of my world". That's what I like to think this movie was trying to explore.